High tides, winds and rain have wreaked havoc across the region, with the repair bill already huge with fears of more bad weather on the way

North and West Wales has been battered by some of the worst storms and floods
for more than 20 years – and experts warn there will be more to come and building ever stronger defences against the waves is no longer an option.

Increasingly, the last line of defence against these extreme forces of nature is to get out of the way, repair the damage to property and count the cost.

The entire coastline of Wales felt the impacts of the storms with an estimated 140 properties and 80 caravans flooded.

Natural Resources Wales estimates that more than 84,500 properties are at risk of tidal flooding in Wales, some 63,500 homes and 21,000 other properties including businesses.

Over the last five years the body and its predecessors, the Environment Agency Wales, spent £79.8m to protect communities from flooding. Of this £18.8m was on tidal flood defence works, or a quarter of available capital.

Since 2011, 50 coastal communities were helped to develop community flood plans, covering around 9,000 properties and 15,000 people, with a network of 269 volunteers to step up in times of emergency.

The Welsh Government was warned in 2012 it needed to find new sources of funding “as a matter of urgency” to protect the coast from collapse and the risk of devastating flooding.

An inquiry by AMs on the Assembly’s environment committee found the cost of replacing Wales’ 250 miles of manmade defences was around £750m, with the costs of the assets they protect – including utilities and infrastructure like rail and roads – put at a massive £8bn.

They found “significant room for improvement” in delivery and resourcing of the Welsh Government’s national coastal protection strategy and have already announced a new study in the wake of the most recent flood chaos.

The minister responsible, Alun Davies, says over the five year term of this Welsh Government more than £240m would be spent on flood and coastal defences despite cuts in funding from the UK Government,

Jeremy Parr, the flood risk manager at NRW, said that it remains impossible to fully protect the entire coastline from the sea. Climate change is now being factored in to modelling and forecasting to estimate the extent of the risk along the shoreline, he said.

“We do seem to be seeing more instances of flood and intense rainfall. Two years ago it came in the summer months. It’s hard to say if it is a lasting pattern,” he said.

Teams of staff at NRW have frontline responsibility to interpret data, forecast the impact of weather events and liaise with local authorities and the emergency services.

Flood defences around the Welsh coast are generally built tall enough and strong enough to withstand a one in 200 years event, he said. But in some circumstances of wind, storm and spray, the water can still pour over.

“We will maintain these defences and make sure they are structurally sound, and when building new defences we will factor in an element for climate change. But Wales has a very long coastline and not all of it is protected from coastal flooding. Not all the defences are NRW – about one third are local authorities, and one third private organisations.”

The NRW knows that simply maintaining the existing defences will treble in cost by 2035 – around £135m a year at 2010 prices.

Conwy and Gwynedd top the table for areas with the most people in properties at significant risk from flooding at around 17,000.

“Three times as much money would be needed just to keep the status quo,” said Mr Parr. “The pressure is there, there’s a funding gap which has led to the conclusion that we need an alternate way of doing things.

“You do have to prioritise where your money is going as you can’t protect everywhere. That becomes an issue for society. Are we prepared to say that in certain locations, they are not top of the priority list?”

Shoreline management plans now included areas marked for “managed retreat” in the longer term, the jargon which means giving up and letting nature take its course.

When the floods hit on December 5 and January 3, three factors combined: high spring tides, deep low pressure over the Atlantic , and the strong south westerly wind bringing 10m high waves “with nothing in the way to stop them”.

Normally a tidal surge could pass through within a few hours, but the timing at high tide was crucial. The peak tide on February 2 is predicted to be even higher than this month’s. Experts will be monitoring the weather and the Atlantic swell to assess if Wales is to face yet another battering.

“It could happen in February and we are keeping an eye on it,” added Mr Parr. “You can’t protect all places all the time, otherwise there would be a huge wall around the coast of Wales which is impractical and too costly.

“We are prepared in terms of monitoring forecasts and informing local authorities where the worst effects would be – people were getting the message to be prepared. When it happens it happens quickly and people need to know what to do in an evacuation plan.”

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The Editor

Mark Thomas

Liverpool-born Mark joined the Daily Post in January 2014 after seven years as editor of its Merseyside sister title the Liverpool Post. He started out as a weekly news reporter on Wirral Newspapers, and spent seven years at the Daily Post and Liverpool Echo. He was The Press Association's regional correspondent for North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire from 1983 to 1997, before returning to the ECHO as deputy news editor. He has won a number of journalism awards, including the UK Press Gazzette Regional Reporter of the Year award, and in 1993 wrote a book on the James Bulger murder.